Tobias Myers Left Mets No Choice But To Demote Him

[Yirsandy Rodríguez]

Image courtesy of © John Jones-Imagn Images

There are pitchers capable of surviving even when one of their best pitches stops working. Tobias Myers never belonged to that group. His success in Milwaukee never depended on a single dominant pitch, but on the way five different pitches forced hitters to make a different decision on every offering. When that identity began to fade, so did the pitcher the Brewers had found.

Two seasons later, that pitcher appears to have vanished. With the New York Mets, Myers has a 6.14 ERA and a 59.1% strand rate. His decline shows the collapse of a pitcher who lost the identity of his repertoire.

Consider the batting line against right-handers: .363/.420/.638. Myers went from a .247 wOBA against righties in 2024 to .448 in 2026. Against lefties, he remains competent: .211 average, .248 OBP. The problem is that right-handed batters represent the majority of the hitters he sees, and Myers has no answers for them.

What changed? In 2024, Myers threw five pitches: four-seam fastball, cutter, slider, changeup, and curveball. The key was not simply having five options. It was the way they complemented each other. The changeup was the pitch that tied the entire repertoire together. It forced batters to respect the bottom of the zone, made the fastball play above its velocity, and delayed slider recognition.

Pitch	Year	AVG	SLG	SwStr%	Vert. Mov.	Hor. Mov.
Changeup	2024	.083	.083	17.1%	7.3	-6.9
Splitter	2026	.179	.462	15.4%	5.2	-5.2

In 2026, Myers has replaced the changeup with a splitter. Unlike the changeup, the splitter has less vertical and horizontal separation and stays in the swing plane longer. That difference reduces the deception that once sustained the repertoire. The results reflect that difference: a .179 batting average against, a .462 slugging percentage, and a 27.3% HR/FB rate. Mistakes with the splitter have been punished.

Myers's slider has also changed. In 2024, it averaged 85.5 mph, generated swings and misses 12.6% of the time, and held batters to a .196 average. In 2026, his slider averages 82.1 mph.

Metric	2024	2026	Change
Velocity	85.5 mph	82.1 mph	-3.4 mph
SwStr%	12.6%	6.9%	-5.7 percentage points
AVG	.196	.333	+.137
wOBA	.212	.429	+.217

The velocity loss did not merely reduce swings and misses. It also reduced the visual overlap between the fastball and the slider. With less separation between the two, hitters have more time to recognize the spin, adjust the swing, and make a decision they previously had to resolve much earlier.

Myers's xERA (4.41) is better than his ERA (6.14). Some of the inflated ERA reflects poor fortune in high-leverage situations. But that does not explain everything; the contact he's surrendering is also a massive issue. Average exit velocity against Myers rose from 89.7 mph in 2024 to 91.6 mph in 2026. His hard-hit rate climbed from 31.4% to 45.8%.

What's behind that jump? As someone with a deep arsenal, Myers has always been more of a command-and-sequencing pitcher. His Location+ in 2024 was 102. His Stuff+ was 91. Now, that relationship has flipped, with a Stuff+ of 103 but a Location+ of 98.

He simply can't get hitters out with regularity these days, giving up at least one run in 10 of his last 12 appearances. His demotion to the minors was a necessary step in getting him right, but the pitcher the Mets thought they acquired from the Brewers is deeply broken right now.

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[The Hot Corner]

It would appear that Myers needs to ditch the splitter and return to the change up he used previous.  With greater movement, both horizontally and vertically it seems to be a "no brainer".